


Viola palustris

by carmellax



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Nonbinary Character, Queer Character, Trans Character, aka i'm using this fic to rub my queer headcanons all over my faves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4493535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmellax/pseuds/carmellax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes there was just no arguing with ignorance, Éponine thought. Sometimes you just had to lie."</p><p>Éponine panic-lies about having a girlfriend to ward off her new flatmates' biphobic remarks. Cosette seems like the best candidate to fill this role.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's been ages since i've written any serious fic so i'm flexing these muscles. as this chapter is literally amazing already, we can only imagine how brilliant things are going to be once i'm back in the zone
> 
> warnings for biphobia

“You’re bi?” asked Montparnasse. “Wow, that’s hot”

Éponine could tell, right away, that coming out to her new flat-mates was not going to be as painless as she had hoped.

She rolled her eyes and tried to suppress the urge to punch someone. Punching someone would definitely be in violation of the university’s terms of tenancy.

Up until about five minutes ago, everything had been going so well.

It was the last weekend of Freshers’ fortnight, and the assortment of students living along Éponine’s corridor in the university halls had been pre-drinking for one last, consequence-less night out before lectures began.

Besides Éponine, there were seven of them in total: Montparnasse, a Theatre student, who had arrived with four suitcases of clothes and few other possessions; Gueulemer, a body-building type with an incredible beard, who had chosen to study Geography because he’d heard it was ‘a bit of a doss’; Babet, an angular Pharmacology student; Boulatruelle, who, okay, was always passed out drunk (Éponine had yet to exchange more than a few words with him, or figure out what degree he was taking), but he seemed fun; Brujon, a guy with a greasy ponytail who appeared to be doing Law just to learn how to break it; Fauntleroy, the only other girl, who was another Geography student and went in for the whole flower crowns and float-y top aesthetic; Panchaud, who was doing Biosciences and smoked like an engine; and Claquesous, a Maths student who left his room only very briefly, and only at night, yet always wore shades.

Despite having known each other for only two weeks, they had all been getting along wonderfully. Éponine should have known that something would happen to disturb the peace. Since when had _anything_ in her life gone wonderfully?

This ‘something’ that had happened had come in the form of a pile of flyers left on the communal kitchen table.

Alongside reminders about the rubbish bins, coupons, and promotional leaflets from campus societies, there had been a leaflet for something called ‘The ABC’. Apparently, this was an unofficial LGBT+ campaign group on campus.

Upon discovering it, Éponine’s flatmates had been very entertained.

“Why’ve we even been given this crap?” Fantleroy had asked, “It’s not like any of _us_ are _that way_.”

Éponine had, of course, not been able to keep her mouth shut. She had spent enough time on being a shy queer back in school, and much preferred the angry queer identity that she had developed over more recent years. So she had told Fauntleroy what was what. And now everyone was staring at her.

Well, some were staring; others were _leering_.

“No it isn’t,” Éponine said, in response to Montparnasse. The comeback was a tad too late for it seem quite as cool as she had intended.

“It is, though,” said Montparnasse.

“Yeah,” agreed Panchaud. This seemed to be his favourite word – Éponine didn’t think he was capable of any conversation that went beyond agreeing with whatever opinion was currently being voiced.

Gueulemer leaned in closer over the kitchen table, smirking. “Can I watch?” he asked.

“Watch what?” asked Éponine. “Me existing as a bi person?” This comeback, she thought, was mildly snappier than the last. Still, she was hardly on top form. What was wrong with her tonight?

“You guys are gross,” said Fauntleroy, wrinkling her nose.

For a moment, Éponine thought that she had found an unexpected ally against the men. Then she realised that Fauntleroy was also including Éponine in the ‘gross’ category. Fucking typical.

“I don’t feel safe now,” Fauntleroy continued. “I can’t believe the uni would just, like, put you in accommodation with other girls without warning them. We share a _bathroom_.”

“You share a bathroom with all these straight men, _sweetie_ ,” Éponine replied, indicating the various straight men with a sweep of her hand.

Montparnasse patted Fauntleroy on the shoulder, making a soothing noise. “It’s alright, ‘Roy,” he said, “everyone knows girls just say they’re bi for attention anyway. She’s not actually going to _do_ anything to you.”

Éponine tried not to think about how satisfying it would be to stab Montparnasse several times with the kitchen’s paring knife. Instead, she forced her face into a smile, clenched her fists under the table, and tried to count to ten.

Before she could get halfway, Montparnasse was talking again.

“Although,” he was saying, “I wouldn’t mind some sandwich action with the two of you girls.”

The other men murmured in agreement (Apart from Boulatruelle, who was already fast asleep on the floor).

“In your fucking dreams,” said Éponine.

“Aw,” said Brujon, “don’t be a prude. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I don’t want to fuck anyone in this fucking room.”

“But _why_?” asked Brujon.

Éponine could see that this conversation was going to go round and round in circles. A torturous night of fielding sexuality questions loomed before her; her head pulsed just at the possibility.

Sometimes there was just no arguing with ignorance, Éponine thought. Sometimes you just had to lie.

“I’m dating someone,” she said.

“What,” asked Montparnasse, “a man?” He nudged Fauntleroy, “Told you she was just saying it for attention.”

“No,” said Éponine, “a woman. A girlfriend.”

Everyone seemed to consider this for a few moments.

“So…” said Gueulemer, having turned the information over in his mind, “Can I watch?”

 

-

 

Éponine ended up spending her last, consequence-less night in her room, unpacking the last of her books and trying not to cry. Even if she did cry a little bit, they were tears of righteous anger. There had never been tears more righteous.

She _certainly_ wasn’t crying because she was upset by something some straight men had said.

Her first seminar was scheduled for the following morning. While Éponine wasn’t keen on the idea of leaving her room and listening to more crap from her flatmates, she refused to let herself live like Claquesous now, venturing out only to use the bathroom or to get food.

No: it was embarrassing enough that she had missed her last night of freedom. She wasn’t going to take any more heterosexual bullshit.

Most of her flatmates were too hung-over for her actually to encounter them when she left her room. She did run into Fauntleroy, however, as Éponine left the bathroom.

“Don’t worry, ‘Roy,” Éponine told her, “I’ve made sure to queer it up for you.”

Éponine personally thought that that one had been pretty good. Fauntleroy just glared in response, shoving past her to shut the door.

The seminar Éponine was headed to was for some module called ‘Reading the Novel’. According to the university website, the module aimed to give students a comprehensive overview of the novel as a genre, and to equip them with the best ways of approaching studying and analysing novels. And to think her parents had told her that English literature was a pointless degree!

The English faculty building, when she managed to track it down, was cosy in a shabby kind of way. Her seminar was in a small, square-ish room, which smelt of Parma violets.

All the chairs inside looked like they might collapse at any minute. Éponine took the one that looked the least dangerous, next to a girl with obviously-bleached hair and a cutesy cardigan. The girl smiled at Éponine. Éponine thought they might have already met at some Freshers’ event, but she couldn’t be sure.

Once the class had begun, and the tutor insisted on everyone introducing themselves, Éponine realised why the girl had looked so familiar: her name was Cosette Fauchelevent, and Éponine had gone to primary school with her.

“What a small world!” laughed Cosette, when Éponine mentioned it at the end of the seminar. She seemed genuinely entertained by the information, which told Éponine that she must not have remembered much about their shared primary school experience. In Éponine’s recollection, Cosette had been rather bullied, and Éponine was certainly not guilt-free in that department.

“Where are you living now?” Cosette asked. “I’m in Picpus.”

Éponine grimaced. “The all-girls’ halls? Isn’t that, like, full of –” She caught herself before saying something that might cause offence. If Cosette was in Picpus, she probably fitted the Picpus stereotype of the goody-goody posh girl. “I mean,” Éponine began again, “how are your flatmates?”

“They’re nice,” said Cosette, “friendly. And I know what you were about to say: no, they’re not all devoutly religious public school-ers. Well, some of them are, but there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Sorry,” said Éponine. She had just noticed a small crucifix on a pendant around Cosette’s neck, which more or less confirmed her suspicions about Cosette’s character. “I’m in Salpetriere,” she added.

Salpetriere was notorious for being loud and grimy, but it was also the cheapest set of halls available on-campus; even with the bursary money to which she was entitled, Éponine hadn’t had much choice.

Cosette made a noise of recognition, and then they were left in silence.

Éponine shifted her weight awkwardly between feet, and tried to think of something to say to bring the conversation to a close, but then Cosette twitched as if to leave, and suddenly Éponine didn’t want their talk to be over. If their talk was over, Éponine would have to return to her halls and to her flatmates. Perhaps Cosette was a bit vanilla, but at least she was friendly.

“So,” said Éponine hurriedly, “what did you think of the seminar?”

It was a silly question, as the seminar had only been an introductory ‘what to expect’ affair – they hadn’t even started on their reading list yet.

Still, it seemed enough to hold Cosette’s attention. She hummed thoughtfully. “Well, it sounds like it’ll be interesting. It’s a lot of reading, though: a book a week!”

Éponine voiced her agreement, and then they chatted for a while about the reading list. It appeared that Cosette was most looking forwards to reading some Austen novels, which Éponine was unsurprised to hear. She had the exact look of an Austen fan: kind of blandly, politely romantic. The cardigan she was wearing had been a dead giveaway.

Éponine was more into modernist stuff. She liked the Beat generation. But, as she explained to Cosette, she didn’t like people who liked the Beat generation. People who liked the Beat generation were invariably pretentious wankers of the Montparnasse variety.

Somewhere over the course of their conversation, they decided to stop loitering around the English faculty, and ended up getting coffee in a nearby café.

“So,” asked Cosette, after they seemed to have exhausted their book-talk, “are your parents still in Hackney?” This was where Cosette and Éponine had gone to school together, back in the day.

Éponine’s parents were _not_ still in Hackney, but she didn’t feel much like talking about their hasty move to Dagenham when she was twelve.

“Nope,” she said, “we moved elsewhere. Still London, though.” It looked like Cosette was going to ask for specifics, so she hastily added, “How about you and your mum?”

This certainly changed the subject: to Éponine’s horror, it appeared that Cosette’s mum had died shortly after the girls had gone their separate ways. Trust Éponine to put her foot in it.

“I live with my dad now,” Cosette was saying. “That is, my adopted dad. We’ve been here and there, but we’re in Cambridgeshire at the moment.”

It wasn’t the most scintillating of conversations, but Cosette was sweet, and nobody was throwing around homophobic slurs; Éponine was enjoying herself.

Eventually, they reached a point where even Éponine’s determination was not enough to keep the conversation going, and Cosette politely excused herself. She even gave Éponine a hug as she left.

It wasn’t a proper hug – just one of those single-armed, lean-in-and-squeeze hugs – but the sensation of Cosette’s body heat pressing briefly against her made Éponine realise in a rush how long it had been since someone had hugged her. When was the last time that another person had come into contact with Éponine in a way that was neither violent nor sexual? The gentleness of the touch almost came as a shock, but it was a shock that felt entirely _nice_.

Cosette, unaware of all this, simply drew back, smiled, and went. The smell of her perfume – something floral and ‘classic’ – lingered.

After a minute or so, Éponine cleared her throat, reminded herself to stop being a baby, and gathered her stuff to leave. By the time she had return to her halls, this new development had almost made her forget the drama of the night before.

Even when Babet kindly reminded her of it, at least Éponine knew that there was _one_ friendly face on campus.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which biscuits are iced and jobs are applied for.

A few days after her first encounter with Cosette, Éponine was filling out part-time job applications when she found herself with a Facebook message. It was from that very person.

Éponine wondered for a moment how Cosette had found her account, and then remembered that her name was sufficiently weird that it probably hadn’t been hard. She shrugged and opened the chat window.

“Have you done the reading for our seminar??” Cosette was asking. “I’m really nervous about what to say!! Want to meet up to talk it over first??”

This was followed by a large number of kisses and cute smileys. Éponine couldn’t decide if it was embarrassing or endearing.

It occurred to Éponine that, considering how confident Cosette had seemed during their last conversation, maybe this was just an excuse to hang out. Parents were always telling their children to reach out and make friends in the first few weeks of university, after all. Not Éponine’s parents. But other parents.

Well, if Cosette wanted to be her bestie, Éponine certainly wasn’t going to deny her the opportunity. And Éponine had already read this week’s book – _Wuthering Heights_ – a few years back.

“Sure,” Éponine typed. “Today good?”

Cosette was clearly online, because it was only a few seconds before she replied with a “Yay!! <3 Yours or mine?? xxx”

Éponine pictured herself rocking up to Picpus, like the proverbial fox in a Conservative henhouse. Then she pictured her sleazy flat-mates meeting Cosette. It wasn’t much of a choice.

“Yours,” she wrote.

 

-

 

It became undeniable that Cosette’s invitation to study had been nothing more than a ruse when Éponine arrived, and was immediately press-ganged into icing biscuits.

“I thought we might want snacks,” Cosette told her indignantly, when Éponine accused Cosette of luring her there under false pretences.

“Sure,” said Éponine, looking around Cosette’s kitchen. As in Salpetriere, the kitchen in Picpus was a communal area, although this one was bigger and cleaner. The floor didn’t stick to Éponine’s shoes.

“Home-made biscuits are an integral part of any study-session,” Cosette was saying.

“Sure.”

“They’re more important than post-its.”

“You can’t write study notes on biscuits, though, can you?” Éponine pointed out.   

Cosette clapped her hands, “Now that’s an idea! I’m going to ice key themes onto them.” She lifted a tube of decorating icing and, very precisely, chewing her lip in concentration, began to squeeze out the word ‘Class’.

“Oh, now that’s a cop-out!” said Éponine.  “Practically every novel on the syllabus is going to be about class. Give me that,” she added, taking the tube for herself.

It was surprisingly difficult to make the letters lie neatly on top of the white sugar icing that they had already spread over the biscuits. After some effort, Éponine managed to write ‘Nature’.

Cosette shook her head, “As if that’s less obvious!” She took the tube and created a ‘Revenge’ biscuit. “That one’s best eaten cold,” she said, and then laughed at her own joke.

Éponine flicked some icing sugar at her by way of reprimand, and then stole back the tube. It took even longer to outline the next word, ‘Foreignness’, because she had to duck several icing sugar attacks along the way. Finally, with her clothes significantly whiter than they had been at the beginning, Éponine presented her work.

“What is this, some contest to write the longest word?” laughed Cosette.

“Bet you can’t beat me.”

Cosette made a pensive humming noise, rubbing her chin and surveying the biscuits. Éponine decided not to tell her that she was covering her face in icing sugar. A good amount had already become attached to her lip-gloss, giving her mouth a funny speckled look.

Solemnly, Cosette retrieved the tube from the table and began writing. “There,” she said, turning the biscuit for Éponine to see. “Homoeroticism. I totally win!”

“What? That’s so not legitimate,” said Éponine. “Where’s that in _Wuthering Heights_? It’s practically about nothing _but_ straight angst.”

“You have to look deeper,” said Cosette, widening her eyes dramatically. “It’s, like, an allegory. It’s all about Emily Brontë’s repressed lesbianism.” Then, seeing Éponine’s look of incredulity, she added, “It _is_! I read a whole article on it.”

“What, on Wikipedia?”

Cosette stuck out her tongue, and immediately received a face-full of icing powder.

Before full icing powder warfare could unfold, a pair of Cosette’s flatmates walked into the kitchen; Éponine and Cosette were forced to resume their decorating, suppressing their giggles as much as they could.

In that quiet interlude, Éponine had time to consider the ‘Homoeroticism’ biscuit that was still sat on the table. It didn’t _tend_ to be straight people who insisted on the queerness of famous authors. And Éponine couldn’t help but notice that, below the hem of Cosette’s ditsy skirt, her bare shins were unshaved.

But then, Éponine asked herself, were these sudden Sapphic vibes the result of Éponine’s gay-dar, or her ‘I hope she’s gay’-dar?

What with the overwhelming heterosexuality of her Salpetriere flatmates, Éponine could do with some non-straight friends. She resolved to undertake a subtle investigation at the soonest possible convenience.

 

-

 

Once adequately stocked up with study snacks, Cosette showed Éponine to her room. As with the kitchens, this was bigger than the ones in Salpetriere, and – to Éponine’s utter awe – had an en suite with an actual bathtub in it.

What Éponine found more impressive, however, were Cosette’s touches of interior decoration. As Éponine probably ought to have predicted from her cutesy fashion sense, Cosette had an eye for the aesthetically pleasing.

Her floral bed-sheets were augmented with a battalion of pillows. Fairy lights were strung across her bookshelf, which was bursting with books, both from the assigned reading list and otherwise, arranged in colour order. Prints of countryside gardens populated her walls. The room smelt of that perfume she liked to wear. There was a lamp shaped like an ugly kitten on her bedside cabinet.

“She’s called Cat-niss,” said Cosette, noticing Éponine’s examination of the kitten.

“Wow.”

“I know, right?” said Cosette. “I personally find myself hilarious.”

Éponine now turned her attention to the furthest corner of Cosette’s room, in which stood a tripod, supporting a small digital camera.

“Co _sette_ ,” said Éponine, giving a scandalised gasp, “what’s that for?”

Cosette’s cheeks pinked. “Nothing like _that_!” she protested. “I vlog, you know, like on Youtube. About fashion. And makeup. You know.”

Honestly, Éponine had always found the concept of fashion vloggers weird, but she wasn’t going to _say_ that. “What’s your username?” she asked, thinking that she might find she actually liked fashion vlogging if she watched some. There was totally no ulterior motive related to finding out more about Cosette’s sexuality.

This question ended up with Cosette showing Éponine some of her videos, which turned into the two of them laughing at silly cat Vines. _Wuthering Heights_ was completely forgotten.

 

-

 

One of the many job applications that Éponine had been sending out since before the beginning of term appeared to have paid off, as she was finally called to an interview. Well, one out of fifty was a better proportion than none out of fifty, she supposed.

The interview was for a position in a local budget hotel, as a part-time housekeeper. It was hardly glamorous, but the hours were pretty flexible, and frankly she needed the money. Whoever was in charge of administering student loans and bursaries was sorely mistaken about the cost of, well, everything.

Coming from a family that had once owned an inn, Éponine knew that she was qualified enough for the interview to be little more than a formality.

She was more worried about what to wear than anything else. She wondered if Cosette had any tutorial videos on dressing for such an occasion. Then again, even if she did, that wouldn’t help Éponine: her clothing collection consisted almost entirely of denim and pleather.

In the end, she was forced to recourse to Montparnasse. He was still being kind of a dick, but not so much of a dick that he was beyond Éponine’s level of tolerance, and he was certainly the flatmate with the largest wardrobe. She could stomach him for long enough to blag a nice shirt out of him.

Éponine didn’t bother to knock on his door; nobody in the corridor locked their rooms, not because they trusted one another not to steal stuff, but because they knew that they could just as easily steal it back.

“Alright, Ép?” Montparnasse greeted her. He was sprawled on his bed, texting. His room was a mess of fabrics. “Talking to me now, are you?”

“Looks like it.”

“Wicked. I missed my Asian buddy.”

“I’m Sri Lankan, your family’s Japanese; that hardly qualifies as a shared heritage,” Éponine said, but she could feel herself softening. Their acquaintance _had_ been fun before the whole biphobia thing.

“Wanna sit?” Montparnasse asked. He idly kicked some garments off the end of his bed to create a spot.

Éponine picked her way across the room to take the proffered seat. For someone who loved clothes so much, Montparnasse really didn’t take care of them.

“I need to borrow a shirt or something,” Éponine said.

“Why’s that, then?”

“Job interview.”

Montparnasse snorted. “Fucking waste of time, if you ask me.”

“I asked you for a shirt, not for life advice.”

“Rude, much?” Montparnasse propped himself up to consider her. He had the look of an artist appraising a canvas. “Alright, there’s a Valentino somewhere in the second drawer. Blue and silver striped with, like, pearlescent buttons. It probably needs an iron. Might fit you.”

The shirt needed far more than an iron, but Éponine took it.

“What’s your girlfriend think, then?” asked Montparnasse. “Doesn’t a job mean less time to spend with her?”

“She thinks I can make my own decisions,” said Éponine.

“Yeah, or she doesn’t exist.”

Éponine had developed a pretty good poker face over the years. Still, she decided that now was a good moment to examine the shirt’s care label, rather than to keep eye contact with Montparnasse. “Why would I make up a girlfriend?” she asked.

“Same reason you’d make up being bi.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m sorry, but who’s lending you a designer shirt? Which will look lush on you, by the way; you’re welcome.”

“Hmm,” said Éponine.

“Well then,” said Montparnasse, “when can I meet her?”

“I’m… what?”

“Surely she’s gonna visit your room at some point?” said Montparnasse, wriggling his well-groomed eyebrows.

“Oh,” said Éponine, “yeah.” Why had it not occurred to her that girlfriends tended to spend time with one another? How had she not foreseen that it would look pretty suspicious if her flatmates never got to _meet_ her fake girlfriend?

“Soon?” asked Montparnasse.

“Sure,” said Éponine, regretting it the moment it had left her mouth. “Look, I have to go, like, hand-wash this now if I don’t want to be late.”

She managed to escape before Montparnasse could think to ask for her girlfriend’s name.

 

-

 

As Éponine had expected, the job interview wasn’t too challenging, although it required her to do a lot of bluffing about her motivation and her ability to work well in a team. Loath as she was to admit it, the Valentino shirt definitely made a good impression.

On her way out, she was stopping by reception to sign the visitors’ book, when something familiar caught her eye. It was one of those ‘ABC’ flyers – the very same kind that had started that fateful argument about the LGBT+ community in her kitchen – half-tucked under some paperwork on the reception desk.

The only other person in the nearby area was the receptionist, a white boy who looked far too intimidated by the presence of a hottie like Éponine to suit a customer-facing role.

“That yours?” she asked him, indicating the flyer.

“Wh-what?” he stammered, looking between her and the flyer, his ears turning the colour of a beetroot. “What? Mine? No, don’t be– I’m just– I’m holding it for a friend,” he said. It was the single most unconvincing thing that Éponine had ever witnessed.

“Course you are,” said Éponine. “I was wondering about going myself, is all, only I wouldn’t know anyone. But maybe I’ll meet your friend. He have a name?”

The boy rubbed the back of his neck, “Er, no. That is, I don’t have a friend. I mean, I do have friends. Lots of friends. Well, maybe not lots. But, in this case–“

“The flyer belongs to you?” Éponine finished, if only to put him out of his misery.

“Yes.”

“Right, well I’m Éponine,” she told him.

“Marius,” said the boy, who was called Marius. “I promise I normally speak a lot more coherently than this.” Éponine didn’t doubt it: his accent was so middle class that she could practically smell the hummus.

“Well, Marius,” said Éponine, “can I have that visitor’s book to sign?”

Marius handed it over.

“Out of curiosity,” she said, filling in the relevant information, “what shade of queer are you?”

She didn’t have to look up to see him turn even redder than before.

“Um, I’m bi. I think. Probably.”

“Nice,” said Éponine, capping her pen. “Me too. Hi five!”

Marius gave a tentative half-smile. “Shouldn’t that be ‘bi five’?”

“Marius, I am already a little bit in love with you,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would highly recommend reading that article on homoeroticism in Wuthering Heights, it's a wild ride


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which fake girlfriends are acquired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much to everyone who's left kudos and some really lovely comments: you are true darlings

Cosette was lovely. She really _was_ lovely. But sometimes she was, well, just a bit too lovely.

Like, what sort of person would walk fifteen minutes out of their way just to bring a surprise coffee to a friend? Éponine wasn’t used to this level of thoughtful kindness – not by a long way – and so she was taken very much by surprise when she received a text from Cosette, saying she was outside with some Starbucks, and could Éponine please let her in?

Éponine had been taking notes for her Renaissance poetry module in the kitchen, but she discarded these immediately on receiving the message, and hurried to her bedroom to assess the situation.

It was just as she had feared: her room was a right tip. If anything, it was somehow even worse than she had remembered, so much so that she thought a localised earthquake might well have hit whilst she was studying.

Even normally, it was far drabber than Cosette’s place: smaller, damper, meaner, with beige walls and a sickly carpet that were unsightly enough to begin with.

Then there were the books. Éponine hadn’t been supplied with a bookshelf like Cosette, so these were forced to live wherever there was a flat surface. What with the assigned reading for six modules, and Éponine’s personal novels, every item of furniture was covered. The desk was a particularly concentrated book-zone, and consequently the floor resembled a desk. You couldn’t walk far for fear of impaling your foot on a pencil.

And, as for Éponine’s personal novels, these were… well, embarrassing. While it didn’t matter if her flatmates knew of her secret love for Mills and Boon paperbacks, she had been cultivating an _image_ with Cosette. Cosette thought she was a cool, avant garde, feminist kind of reader.

There was no question of it – Cosette would have to be kept out of Éponine’s room.

The kitchen was their only other option. What were the chances of Éponine’s flatmates behaving themselves? She grimaced. But Cosette was waiting outside, probably burning her hands on crappy paper cups, and there was no time to explore other avenues.

Éponine reluctantly went to let her in at the front door.

If Cosette was taken aback at how shabby Salpetriere was, she did a good job at keeping it to herself. Still, Éponine bustled her along to the kitchen as quickly as possible, so that she wouldn’t have time to examine all the cracks and weird mouldy patches that served for decoration in the corridors.

In the kitchen, the smattering of people who had been keeping Éponine company for her study session were still sitting around – these were Babet, Gueulemer, and Boulatruelle (who was, on this rare occasion, not yet passed out drunk). They all looked Cosette over in the same way that a shopper might look at meat on a deli counter, but they must have caught Éponine’s expression, as none of them said anything beyond a greeting.

“I’m not disturbing you?” Cosette asked, seeing Éponine’s notes scattered on the table.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Éponine told her, clearing them to one side and pulling out two chairs. “I was just finishing, to be honest. Um, thanks for the coffee.” On taking a sip, she discovered that Cosette had remembered exactly how she liked it. What a darling.

“You’re very welcome,” said Cosette. “And all I ask in return is for your delightful company.”

“Wow, that’s a high price.”

“I was trying to get some work done in the library, but it was killing my spirit. I need a recharge. Have you been in?”

“The library? In second week?” asked Éponine. “I know we Lit students are meant to be bibliophiles, but that really is over-eager.”

“I wish I hadn’t,” said Cosette, “it doesn’t deserve to call itself a library. It’s, like, a vortex of despair. You can feel the accumulated sorrows of years’ worth of students, haunting it.”

“What, like they’ve died in there?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s like the place was designed for the sole purpose of causing stress.”

Babet, who had been reading a newspaper, glanced over the top of it. “I like it,” he said. “Good for business.”

“What business is that?” asked Cosette. Bless her innocent soul, Éponine thought.

“Pharmaceuticals,” said Babet. He was not referring purely to the substances he was studying on his Pharmacology course.

“Oh,” said Cosette, then sipped her coffee, probably because she didn’t know what else to say.

Her silence was broken by the sound of the kitchen door (it tended to stick, and you really had to shove it to get it to open), which preceded Fauntleroy. She flounced in, and drooped herself directly over Boulatruelle’s lap – the two had, at some point over the past couple of weeks, become an item. He responded with a kiss that was far more passionate than Éponine was comfortable seeing in a kitchen. It simply wasn’t hygienic.

“So… what were you studying in the library?” Éponine asked Cosette, in an attempt to subvert the awkwardness.

“Same as you, by the looks of it,” said Cosette, gesturing to Éponine’s notes with a laugh. “I’m glad I’m not the only one already leaving things to the last minute!”

Éponine had just been thinking the same thing – their Renaissance poetry lecture was later that afternoon.

This week’s was on Philip Sidney’s _Astrophil and Stella_ – a seemingly endless sonnet sequence that was, in Éponine’s opinion, little more than some dudebro lamenting the friend-zone. She told Cosette as much.

“Éponine _no_ , don’t ruin it for me!” said Cosette, swatting her shoulder. “I was finding it romantic up until now!”

“What? Did you get to the part where he sneaks into her room to watch her sleeping?”

“ _Ép_.”

“And how many sonnets can you write on someone’s eyes?”

“You’re so unromantic,” said Cosette.

Éponine thought of her Mills and Boon collection, and had to suppress a snort. “Okay,” she pressed, “what about all those silly metaphors? The one about how her face is a house?”

“It was cute,” insisted Cosette. “Wouldn’t you want me to say that your face was like a house?”

“No, I bloody wouldn’t.”

“Your face is like a house, Éponine,” said Cosette, placing a hand against Éponine’s cheek with theatrical exaggeration. “No, it’s like a mansion.”

“Your face is a Regency era country estate,” said Éponine, mirroring Cosette’s gesture, so that they must have looked truly ridiculous.

“Yours is a castle.”

“Your face is Buckingham fucking palace.”

At this, Fauntleroy made a gagging noise.

“You okay?” asked Éponine, turning to check that Fauntleroy wasn’t choking to death on Boulatruelle’s tongue. She wasn’t; although, for some inexplicable reason, she _was_ glowering like a gargoyle.

“Look,” said Fauntleroy, “I’m not a homophobe, right? I don’t care about whatever. I get that you want to prove you’re actually bi, like that’s a real thing. But you don’t have to rub it in my face.”

“What?” Éponine asked, not fully following this train of thought.

“That’s the girlfriend we all thought you made up for attention, right?” asked Fauntleroy, talking very slowly, as if she was explaining something to an irritating child. “So can you two do all that lesbian shit in your room?”

Éponine thought this was pretty rich coming from someone whose mouth had very recently been welded to her boyfriend’s.

“Cosette’s not my girlfriend,” said Éponine quickly, darting a look at Cosette to see what she made of this. Her face was settled in a careful expression, the meaning of which Éponine couldn’t guess.

Gueulemer had apparently tuned into the conversation at the prospect of some girl on girl action, as he now clapped his hands and grinned, teeth glistening against the darkness of his beard. “Oh, she _so_ is. And she’s hot. Fucking brill!”

“She’s not,” said Éponine. “My girlfriend, that is.”

“But you agree she’s hot?” asked Babet, folding away his newspaper.

“I’m getting ‘Parnasse,” laughed Gueulemer, jumping up.

“Don’t!” said Éponine.

She was too late: Gueulemer was already in the corridor, calling out. Cosette had turned very pink; although it was unclear whether this was from the allegations of a relationship with Éponine, or at the thought that Éponine found her hot (which was untrue: Éponine would have said ‘cute’, rather than ‘hot’).

Montparnasse’s voice carried down the corridor. “What’s up?”

“Ép’s girlfriend’s here!”

“No fucking way,” Montparnasse said, roving into view. He stopped at the kitchen door, saw Cosette and Éponine, and gave a giggle of delight. “That’s not your girlfriend.”

“It is,” said Fauntleroy, with a shudder, “you should have _heard_ them earlier. Right gross.”

Éponine couldn’t believe how one little lie had blown up so spectacularly in the course of one minute. Nothing – short of admitting that she’d made up having a girlfriend – was going to convince her flatmates that she wasn’t dating Cosette; but admitting that she’d made up having a girlfriend would only go to ‘prove’ their theory that she was making up her entire sexuality for attention!

Plus, Cosette was growing visibly more uncomfortable with every word spoken.

This was it, then; Éponine would have to confess her dishonesty and deal with whatever fallout it entailed. She was just opening her mouth to speak, when Cosette reached over and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Okay, you’re right,” Cosette told the room. “We’re girlfriends.”

Luckily, everyone was too busy hooting (or, in Fauntleroy’s case, frowning) to notice Éponine’s eyes bulging out of her head.

“What was your name again?” asked Montparnasse, who was already fiddling with the Facebook app on his phone.

Cosette told him.

“If you’re Ép’s girlfriend,” Montparnasse said, “how come you haven’t updated it on Facebook?”

“We weren’t sure it was serious,” Cosette replied coolly. “But now that I’ve met her friends, I suppose it is. Here, I’ll change it right now… um… if that’s okay with you, Éponine?”

Éponine nodded, trying to communicate with it her unfathomable gratitude and utter adoration. How she would ever repay Cosette for her martyrdom, she had no idea. How Cosette had read the situation so perfectly and found a solution, she also had no idea. It was all part of the bigger mystery; the mystery of how it was possible for a person to be so perfectly lovely.

 

-

 

Relationship statuses updated, Éponine managed to pull Cosette aside for a little talk, soliciting a number of silly kissing noises from Montparnasse in the process.

Éponine had forgotten what a tip her room was under the stress, but by the time she remembered, she had already opened the door. Cosette was thankfully too polite to say anything.

“Watch the crap on the floor,” Éponine warned, leading Cosette over so they could sit on the bed.

At the same time, Cosette was saying, “I hope that was okay?”

“What? Oh, okay? Yeah, seriously, Cosette, thank you, you’re a life saver.”

“I assumed if you actually had a girlfriend, I would have heard about her.”

Éponine grimaced, “Yep, no, I completely made up having one.”

After a little pressing, Éponine gave Cosette a condensed version of an explanation. Telling it in retrospect, she could see about a hundred better things she could have done to solve the situation. Why she had thought that inventing a girlfriend was a good idea was anyone’s guess.

“So, thanks,” Éponine concluded. “You’ve saved my honour or whatever. Look, you’d better change your relationship status back quickly before anyone important sees.”

“What?” said Cosette, “Won’t that just cause you more problems?”

“Nah, they won’t check again. Anyway, I’ll deal with it. Go on, change it back; I’m not going to ask you to sacrifice yourself for me. I mean, maybe if you want to put in appearance here now and again, that’d be cool, but that’s all.”

Cosette pursed her lips incredulously, but took out her phone to make the adjustment. Then she winced.

“What?” asked Éponine, scooting over to look at the screen.

“Dad,” said Cosette.

Sure enough, Cosette’s dad had already written an essay-length comment beneath the post. Éponine didn’t have time to read it all, but a quick skim revealed phrases such as “So happy for you;” “The proudest father in the world;” “Can’t wait to meet her;” and a glut of kisses and middle-aged-PTA-mum chatspeak. There were also some messages of congratulations from other friends, both Cosette’s and Éponine’s, but these were dwarfed by Mr Fauchelevent’s epistle.

“I think we may be too late,” said Cosette.

“Ah.”

“I didn’t see this coming.”

“Neither. Especially from your dad – he seems very, uh, cool with it, for someone whose profile picture is literally just a crucifix.”

“Not all Christians are the Wesboro Baptist Church, Éponine,” Cosette told her sternly.

“Yep, sorry.”

“Besides, he’s known I’m pan for a few years now.”

Éponine did a mental fist-pump at her gay-dar’s abilities.

“In fact,” Cosette was saying, “he was far more funny about my ex-boyfriend; he doesn’t trust men very much.”

“Sensible guy.”

Cosette considered her dad’s message for a while longer, biting her lower lip. “I’ll break his heart if I change it back now… Maybe we’re in this for the long-haul,” she said.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” said Éponine.

“You’re not asking; I’m offering!” Cosette laughed, completely overlooking the fact that it nevertheless left Éponine very much in her debt. Éponine really hated being in people’s debt.

“Mmm,” said Éponine.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” said Cosette. “Very Mills and Boon.”

Éponine’s scalp immediately set to prickling in embarrassment. “Pretend you didn’t see those.”

“But I’m your girlfriend now, I’m supposed to know all your dirty little secrets.”

“You’re a bad person,” said Éponine, even though it was clearly untrue. “Okay, look, we ought to lay down some rules, I guess.”

“Rules?”

“Like, what’s okay and what’s not,” Éponine explained, fixing her eyes on a damp patch on the wall, rather than making eye contact. It was too weird to be discussing boundaries with a cute girl without actually being in a relationship with the cute girl.

“Oh, okay,” said Cosette, who appeared also to be finding the damp patch very interesting. “Hugging?”

“We already do that, babe.”

“Good point. I guess that means dramatic face-holding whilst delivering hyperbolic compliments is also on the whitelist.”

“Of course,” said Éponine vaguely, distracted by wracking her brains for what people normally did in relationships. She hadn’t had a serious relationship before (Although she wasn’t going to admit this to Cosette: having your first relationship be a fake one was really just too pathetic). “What about, er, hand-holding?”

“I’m happy with that! What’s, um, what’s the deal with kissing, though?”

Éponine tried to imagine kissing Cosette. It would probably be very nice; Cosette had perfect lips. But that wasn’t the point. It was too weird. Éponine shook her head, partly as an answer, and partly to dispel the mental image. “No,” she said. “On the cheek, though, maybe?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. If needed. And, look, if anything ever happens that either one of us is uncomfortable with, we make sure we’re communicating it.”

Éponine privately thought that – unless she had a personality overhaul very soon – she probably would not be communicating any of her emotions. But it was important that Cosette felt able to voice any concerns, so she agreed. The last thing she wanted was for her fake relationship to lead to a real friend break-up.

“Wait, how long are you picturing this going on for?” Éponine asked, as it occurred to her that, at some point, they would have to stage _some_ kind of break up.

Cosette shrugged, playing with the corner of Éponine’s duvet cover thoughtfully. “How long do you need it for? It’s your lie, Ép.”

“I don’t know… I hadn’t thought that far ahead. If it’s too soon then I’ll get Montparnasse saying it’s because all bi girls are really straight or some bullshit like that.”

“Ew,” said Cosette. “Okay, like, a few months?”

Éponine considered this. Could she pretend to be dating Cosette for three months? When she imagined it, she didn’t see how it would be difficult. They already hung out a lot, after all. She could manage… Only, of course, the longer they were ‘together’, the less believable it would be that they were staying friends after it was over. She pointed this out to Cosette.

“What if we ‘broke up’ over the winter holidays?” Cosette suggested. “That way it can be, like, quiet. Then we can return as friends in January without anyone taking any notice.”

“That sounds sensible.”

“But if something else comes up, like, I don’t know, another romantic interest,” Cosette added, “we can always break it off early.”

For some reason, the idea of Cosette leaving her for someone else – even though it wouldn’t really be ‘leaving her’ – rubbed Éponine the wrong way. But she had no reason to object; it would be pretty fucking selfish to forbid Cosette from dating anyone for her sake. Éponine could be a jealous person, she knew that, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t at least _try_ not to be.

“Sure,” she said, “of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> astrophil and stella sonnet ix:
> 
> "Queene Vertue's Court, which some call Stella's face,  
> Prepar'd by Nature's choisest furniture,  
> Hath his front built of alabaster pure;  
> Gold is the covering of that stately place.  
> The doore, by which sometimes comes forth her grace,   
> Red porphir is, which locke of pearle makes sure,   
> Whose porches rich (which name of cheekes endure)  
> Marble, mixt red and white, do enterlace.   
> The windowes now, through which this heav'nly guest  
> Looks over the world, and can find nothing such.   
> Which dare claime from those lights the name of best,   
> Of touch they are, that without touch doth touch,  
> Which Cupid's selfe from Beautie's mine did draw:   
> Of touch they are, and poore I am their straw."
> 
> nothing screams romance like 'your cheeks remind me of my front porch'. fucking incredible


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the ABC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, in which all my character tags are finally justified

Hotel work was not nearly as glamorous as it sounded, Éponine discovered during her first shift. Sure, she had expected cleaning toilets to be gross, but she had not been prepared for the grossness of the customers. Give her a filthy bathroom any day of the week: customers were the worst.

After the fourth sexual comment of the morning – because, apparently, the epitome of middle-aged male hotel-guest humour was making lewd maid jokes – Éponine decided that she absolutely deserved a hot chocolate.

In the staff-room, she found the boy whom she had met the other day, Marius.

“On your break?” he asked. He was sat on one of a number of squat red chairs that had been provided for employees’ comfort – or, judging by Marius’ posture, for employees’ discomfort.

Éponine shrugged in reply. “It was take a break or break a man’s arm.”

“I see.”

“How long am I allowed, again?”

“Well, Laura” – this was the name of their manager – “doesn’t care, as long as the jobs get done. She takes a cigarette break every half hour, so…”

So Éponine had plenty of time to make a drink, was what she understood from this. Once she had figured out how to use the staff kettle, she sat down in a chair opposite Marius and tried to find a position that didn’t instantly cause her muscles to cramp. She was unsuccessful.

“So,” said Marius, “the, er, the first proper meeting for that thing is on this Friday.”

“By ‘thing’, you mean the ABC group?”

He nodded.

“And we’re going together, right?”

Marius looked very relieved at this. “Yes, please, thank you, I really appreciate it.”

Éponine considered him over her mug of hot chocolate. “What, are you nervous or something?”

Marius scratched his nose self-consciously. “I mean, no, because I already know one of the members, my flatmate, but…”

“But?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t. Cross my heart.” She had little faith in her ability to keep this promise, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

“I’ve met some of these people before and they’re all very… intense. I feel like, maybe I’ll walk in and they’ll take one look at me and know I’m not meant to be there.”

“How’d you mean?”

“Well, for starters, I’ve only had a girlfriend before.”

Éponine rolled her eyes. “If you’re about to say you think you can’t be bi because you haven’t dated men, then I’m going to shake you until you rattle. That’s just a bullshit myth, and you know it.”

This was clearly more reassuring than Éponine had intended it to be, as it merited a smile from Marius.

 

-

 

“Are you up for a ‘date night’ on Friday?” Cosette asked that evening. They were in her room, trying to select an outfit for her latest vlog. Apparently this was a difficult process.

“Can’t,” said Éponine, who was watching Cosette’s clothes-hunt from a perch on the bed. “I already promised to be somewhere else.”

“What could possibly be more important than your girlfriend?”

“This one’s nice,” suggested Éponine, pointing to a strappy pink top.

“But it won’t match this skirt,” said Cosette. “Come on, Friday, what is it?”

“A meeting thing.”

“What about the navy blouse?”

“Cute,” said Éponine, giving a thumbs up.

Cosette pulled it off the hanger and began to remove the top she’d been wearing. “What’s the meeting?”

Éponine quickly averted her eyes, although not in time to avoid catching a glimpse of white lace and soft rolls of skin. “The ABC,” she replied, trying to sound nonplussed. “Do you want me to, like, leave the room?”

“No, that’s fine.”

“Right. It’s an LGBT plus campaign group; I have a colleague who’s going and I thought it sounded interesting.”

“Isn’t the LGBT society just called LGBT Soc?” asked Cosette. “I’m finished with the buttons, you can stop pretending to look out the window.”

“You have a lovely view out there,” said Éponine.

“Am I not a more lovely view?”

“Well, okay, yes. And yes to the other question. But, from what I gather, the ABC is more, like, focused on campaigns. It’s not an official society.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not clear on the difference, which is why I wanted to go see. I think they do, like, youth outreach clubs; demonstrations here and there; help at the local crisis shelter. That kind of thing.”

“Gold necklace?”

Éponine appraised this for a moment. “Yep, that works.”

“It sounds really interesting, actually,” said Cosette. “Dad and I do a lot of volunteering at home. I really miss it. Can you do this up?”

Éponine obligingly stood up to help.

“People don’t realise how much it helps when you’re struggling,” Cosette went on, turning around and pulling her hair to one side. “Having a free meal, hearing a kind word, or even just knowing there are people fighting on your side.”

Éponine wondered if she was speaking from experience. She could barely guess what Cosette’s life had looked like outside of primary school, what it had looked like after her mother died.

“Believe me, I know,” said Éponine, brushing a few stray hairs from the back of Cosette’s neck, and taking a hold of the necklace. This close, Cosette’s un-dyed roots were very obvious. She had a mole just above the line of her collar.

“Are you done?” asked Cosette.

Éponine realised that she had just been standing there, holding the two halves of the necklace without actually attaching them. That was probably considered a weird thing to do. She did up the clasp hurriedly. “There you go.”

“Thanks! So, am I invited?”

“Invited?”

“To the meeting?”

Éponine had somehow forgotten what they’d been talking about. “Yes,” she said, internally scolding herself for being too queer to do up a girl’s necklace without getting distracted. “Yes, of course! ABC date night it is.”

“What do you think?” asked Cosette, standing back for Éponine to get a full view of her outfit.

“You look great. Then again, you’d look great in a bin bag.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a saying,” said Éponine.

“I do have a corset thing that might well be made out of bin bag material,” said Cosette.

“What? That sounds amazing! Why haven’t I seen you wear it?”

Cosette laughed, “I thought you’d say that. It’s too small, though. Size ten. Been a while since I was there!”

“You break my heart.”

“Do you want to try it on? It’ll probably be too big, but, on the off chance…”

Éponine wanted very much to try it on, but she was already incredibly indebted to Cosette for the whole fake girlfriend thing. She wasn’t keen on increasing that debt by accepting her clothes. “Won’t that be weird?” she asked.

“What? No, isn’t that what girlfriends do?” asked Cosette with a wink. “Share clothes?”

It seemed that Cosette was not going to accept ‘no’ for an answer, and so Éponine agreed to try the bin bag corset thing.

Feeling weirdly shy under Cosette’s gaze – weirdly because she was normally _too_ comfortable with nudity – Éponine switched her top for the corset. It was as gloriously tacky and gothic as she had dreamed. The fit was slightly too large, but not so that it was horribly noticeable.

“Oh, Ép, you look _hot_ ,” said Cosette, guiding her to the mirror.

“Really? I thought it was a bit trashy.”

Cosette giggled at the pun, straightening up one of the shoulder straps for Éponine. “Okay, you have to keep this.”

“I can’t just take your clothing from you.”

“I’m _giving_ it,” Cosette told her. “Please keep it? Pretty please? Hey, you can wear it for our ‘date’ on Friday and make all your flatmates super jealous.”

Cosette’s argument was compelling.

 

-

 

The ABC meeting was to be held in the back room of an off-campus café called the Musain: apparently because it was an unofficial society, it didn’t have the necessary permissions to hire out campus venues. Éponine had agreed to meet Marius outside before it started, so she and Cosette turned up early to loiter. Too early, as it turned out, because they were waiting so long that Cosette had to disappear inside in search of the toilets.

She was still inside when Marius turned up, accompanied by someone who Éponine assumed to be his aforementioned flatmate.

“You’re here!” said Marius, sounding as though he hadn’t believed she would follow through on her promise.

“Sure am,” said Éponine. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, yes,” said Marius, “This is Courfeyrac. He lives across the hall from me.”

“And you’re the legendary Éponine!” said Courfeyrac, grinning, thereby revealing an excellent set of teeth. “I’ve heard _so much_ about you.”

“Like what?”

“Like that you’re called Éponine.”

“I’m not sure that qualifies as ‘so much,’” Éponine observed.

“I’ve also learned much about you by snooping around on Facebook, I’ll admit. Bless the Internet. Is your girlfriend here tonight?”

“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend,” said Marius, frowning. It was adorable that he felt betrayed by this omission despite having spoken to Éponine only twice.

“That’s, uh,” said Éponine, who hadn’t been expecting to have to extend the deception this far. Was it better to continue the lie, or to come clean about the whole thing? She was so bad at all this morality stuff.

“Ah, here she is!” said Courfeyrac, waving at some point behind Éponine, “That’s the girlfriend, right? Cosette, is it?”

“Cosette?” repeated Marius, his voice going suddenly and comically squeaky.

“Yep, I’m the girlfriend,” Cosette was saying as she approached, “you’re– _Marius_?”

Éponine turned to see that Cosette had stopped quite still. She was staring at Marius, who was staring right back, as if they had entered an impromptu staring contest and were both very serious about winning the prize.

“Do you… know each other?” asked Éponine.

Cosette was the first to recover herself. She cleared her throat, and then said, “Yes, we used to go to Sixth Form together. He’s, uh, my ex-boyfriend.”

Éponine had not been ready for this at all.

Neither, it appeared, had Courfeyrac, who whooped in surprised delight. “No way, José!” he said.

“I thought you were moving abroad?” Marius asked.

“I thought _you_ were going to Oxford?” said Cosette.

Courfeyrac clapped Marius cheerily on the back. “We’re going to miss the start of the meeting,” he said. “Let’s postpone the touching reunion until afterwards, shall we? Nice top, by the way, Éponine,” he added, as he steered Marius inside.

 

-

 

In the back room of the Musain, a group of students were already gathered around. Most of them were chatting like old friends; Éponine assumed that some had been members of the ABC in previous years.

Almost as soon as they had found places to sit, one of these students stood up to address everyone. Ae introduced aerself as Enjolras, an agender Politics finalist. Apparently ae was the group’s leader, and, loosely, its founder. When ae spoke, it was as if ae was addressing a far larger audience than what was actually before aer.

“Some of you might be wondering,” ae said, once those initial formalities were over, “how the ABC differs from LGBT Soc. In case you haven’t read the Students’ Union regulations, the university is under the impression that allowing political societies is a potential danger. Because of this, the SU is forbidden to sanction any political, liberation, or activism groups by granting them official society status. Allegedly, there was an incident before this ruling was passed, involving students from the Labour and Conservative parties in the eighties, which made it necessary.”

Courfeyrac tittered at this. “Fucking Thatcher, right?” he whispered.

Enjolras went on: “LGBT Soc serves an important purpose: it creates a safe space for non-cishet students to come together as a community and make friends who share their experiences; it nourishes pride.

“But I don’t think that pride is solely a feeling. I believe that pride is political; I want to use my pride as a tool to help create a better society, not only for myself, but for all oppressed people. That’s who the ABC is for: people who want to _use_ pride rather than simply to have it.”

Enjolras was a fantastic speaker; Éponine had no doubts that aer Politics degree would take aer far. Ae’d probably become the first agender Prime Minister one day, or something equally impressive.

After Enjolras’ welcome talk was over, and a few people had slunk away in fright, the remaining people took turns to introduce themselves. Although ae had insisted that nobody was obliged to give any information on any aspect of their identity, besides any names and pronouns that they wanted to be called, this meet-and-greet did quickly descend into orientation bingo.

Firstly, there was Enjolras’ second-in-command, as it were. Combeferre, a Biosciences finalist, was an aro-ace trans boy. As he told everyone, he was an international student, originally from India, and he intended to go into a teaching course upon finishing his Bachelors’ degree.

It turned out that Courfeyrac, despite being a first year Theatre student, was also an integral part of the group, having been Enjolras’ best friend growing up. He described himself as “punsexual”, which made everyone groan, and then embarrassed Enjolras with some childhood stories.

Next was Joly, a second year Medicine student who walked with a cane and had a thick Brummie accent. He was non-binary, pan, and gray-ace, he said.

(“I’m sorry,” Marius interrupted here, “I’m new to this, can you tell me what gray-ace means?”

Luckily, Joly seemed happy enough to explain this to the group.

“That’s a thing?” asked Marius, when he was finished.

“Yes, it really is,” said Joly.

“Oh,” said Marius, “it’s just that, okay, that sounds exactly like me! I thought I was bi, but I am exactly what you just described. Can I be both?”

“Course you can,” said Joly. “Welcome to the club!”)

His boyfriend, Bossuet, was a Law student who was repeating his first year on account of having failed it the last time around. He seemed pretty chirpy about the whole situation, considering.

Sat in between them was Musichetta, who, it appeared, was also dating Joly. She was another international student, from Italy, and a trans girl. Her Maths degree was going far better than Bossuet’s Law one: she was in her final year now.

Last of the established crowd was Grantaire, a bisexual Art History finalist who was Enjolras’ boyfriend. This struck Éponine as peculiar: they made a funny pair, between Enjolras’ weirdly formal beauty and the fact that Grantaire didn’t look to have changed his hoody in months.

Then there were the new additions to the group this year. Éponine, Marius, and Cosette were the only properly new first years, aside from Jehan.

Jehan was a genderfluid English lit student – Éponine actually recognised them from lectures, if only because of their abominable wardrobe choices. They were an international student from Singapore, and gave off a vibe that fell somewhere between ‘Edgar Allen Poe’ and ‘that one douchebag at a party who insists on playing ‘Wonderwall’ on their guitar’.

The two other new faces were both Postgrad students, and were actually sharing a house together. One was Feuilly, an aromantic gay man doing a Masters in International Relations. He announced to the group that his interest in the field came from his own history: he was originally from Mexico, but had been adopted by a Scottish couple at age four. His accent was soft and fluting, very characteristic of the Highlands.

The other postgrad student was Bahorel, a bigender person with an accent straight out of ‘The Only Way is Essex’. She had done her Undergraduate degree in Law, hated it, and was now working towards a Masters in Film instead.

Together, they formed quite a collection, but a collection that Éponine rather liked the look of.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Éponine's night has an unexpected conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been so embarrassingly long. i would blame all the writing i have to do for my degree, but that would imply that i've actually been DOING the writing i have to do for my degree. if you've waited this long: thanks for your patience, i love you

 “Wow,” said Courfeyrac, looking at his watch. “Have you seen the time?”

“What is it?” asked Éponine, frowning. She didn’t think it could have gotten that late.

“It’s backstory time!” said Courfeyrac. “Marius, Cosette: spill the beans!”

The ABC’s introductory meeting had ended a little while ago, and now the first year members were waiting to catch the bus back to campus. Clearly this was Courfeyrac’s idea of suitable small talk to pass the time.

“What beans?” asked Marius.

“You two were dating in Sixth Form, yeah? But you somehow didn’t realise you were going to the same Uni,” said Courfeyrac. “There has to be a juicy story in there somewhere, right?”

Of course Éponine had been wondering the same thing, but it seemed a little rude just to straight up ask about it. Sure, the initial awkwardness between Cosette and Marius had seemed to fade away over the course of the meeting – so it didn’t seem like there were too many ill feelings there – but you could never be sure with these things.

Jehan – apparently in agreement with Éponine – cleared their throat. “Is that entirely tactful?”

“Oh,” said Courfeyrac, as if the question had never occurred to him, “I mean, you guys don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to. My bad.”

“No, it’s fine,” said Cosette. “To be honest, I want to know what’s going on myself. Marius told me he was going to read Law at Oxford.”

“Pontmercy, you liar!” said Courfeyrac.

“It wasn’t like that!” protested Marius. “I did go to Oxford to do Law. It was awful. I didn’t like the course, everyone was way smarter than me, and I failed all my essays. So I dropped out.”

Courfeyrac frowned. “But, if you didn’t like the course, why did you apply for it in the first place?”

“I thought I wanted to be a barrister. Well, no, my grandfather wanted me to be a barrister. And to go to Oxford. Same as him. But then, once I’d got there, and had some space to think for myself, I realised it wasn’t what I wanted at all. So now I’m here doing linguistics. It’s a lot more interesting.”

“And the company’s better,” said Courfeyrac.

Marius smiled shyly at them all. “That too.”

“Well,” said Jehan, “now I want to hear about Cosette and Éponine’s blossoming love story. Is it dreadfully romantic? Lowercase ‘r’, not uppercase, although I would be thrilled to hear that rain storms and occultism came into it.”

“No such luck,” said Éponine. “Is that our bus?”

It was indeed their bus, and the conversation was halted briefly as they all fumbled with fares, not yet fully used to the intricacies of the local public transport services.

“Don’t think that bus ruse has knocked us off the scent,” said Courfeyrac, once they were all seated. “Cosette, how come you’re not abroad? And when did you two start dating?”

“Dad decided not to move in the end,” said Cosette. “It’s no more exciting than that. Marius and I had already mutually agreed to break up, and he’d left for Uni, so I didn’t want to make things weird by telling him.”

Éponine, who thought that she was becoming reasonably good at reading Cosette’s emotions, wasn’t fully convinced that this explanation was the truth of the matter.

“Sorry, Marius,” Cosette added. “I hope you don’t think that was wrong of me?”  
Marius shook his head. “Of course not.”

Were they suddenly now regretting the break up? By Éponine’s maths, it would have been over a year ago, but it sounded like the main factor in their decision had been the distance. Were there still unresolved feelings there? Éponine didn’t know how to feel about the idea.

“Anyway,” Jehan said, their voice interrupting Éponine’s conjectures, “on to the romantic subplot, with or without rainstorms…”

“We met in a seminar and I asked her out for coffee,” said Éponine. “Pretty bog standard.”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly the first time we met,” Cosette pointed out. “We went to primary school together,” she added, for the benefit of everyone else.

“Childhood sweethearts!” said Courfeyrac, beaming. “Aw, that’s adorable.”

Éponine chose not to mention that ‘sweethearts’ had been the very opposite of her relationship to Cosette back then.

Apparently Cosette’s thoughts hadn’t followed the same track, as she reached out and took Éponine’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Only because Ép’s so adorable,” she said.

When was the last time someone had called Éponine adorable? Not since puberty, certainly. She returned Cosette’s squeeze.

 

*

 

The group splintered in two when they got back to campus: Courfeyrac, Marius, and Jehan made their way back to Verrerie, leaving Cosette and Éponine alone.

“I’ll walk you home,” Éponine offered. Although campus seemed safe, Éponine didn’t like the idea of abandoning Cosette to walk on her own late at night. While she was strong in many ways, Éponine could hardly imagine her winning in a physical altercation with a would-be mugger (or worse).

“Thanks,” said Cosette, looping an arm through one of Éponine’s. It was getting cold out – particularly in the borrowed top that Éponine was wearing – but Cosette’s body heat, pressed against her side, kept the night chill at bay. 

“They all seemed nice, didn’t they?” Cosette said, as they walked. “It was a real surprise to see Marius again! I thought I was seeing things, for a moment there.”

“Small world, I guess,” said Éponine.

“Still, it was good to catch up with him, I’m glad he’s doing well. You said he was your colleague?”

“Yep.”

“How odd.”

“Odd?” asked Éponine.

“It’s just that I always gathered his grandfather was quite… well, rich. I wouldn’t have thought Marius would need a job. I hope his grandfather’s alright.”

“I guess it’s none of our business,” said Éponine. Of course, her mind was already awhirl with possible explanations that she knew would never settle down until the mystery was solved. But she wanted Cosette to think that she was an empathetic, mature kind of gal. What could she say? She liked cute people to think the best of her.

“I suppose.” Cosette laughed. She nudged Éponine and sent them both swerving off to one side.

“Oi!” said Éponine, steering them back onto their route.

Many of the lights were off in Picpus’ windows when Éponine and Cosette reached it. However much Cosette insisted that her flatmates were far cooler than the Picpus stereotype, it looked like most of them were in bed before midnight.

“Thank you, my gallant suitor,” said Cosette at the door, pulling Éponine into a hug. “Text me when you get home, will you?”

 

*

 

When Éponine got back to the flat, she found herself immediately pounced upon by Montparnasse. She wondered if he’d been waiting for her.

“Back from your date so early?” he crooned. He was wearing a hideous silk dressing gown.

“Going to bed so early?” Éponine retorted.

“Bed? No, I’m in the process of getting ready. To go out. The night is still young, Ép, and, you know, I’m not some kind nerd. Unlike you, clearly. Back from a date before midnight. That is shameful.”

“You’re hardly one to talk about shame,” said Éponine, indicating the dressing gown.

“No, but seriously, why aren’t you staying over hers? Or why isn’t she back here with you?” He gave a dramatic gasp. “Is this the lesbian bed death I’ve heard so much about?”

“Neither of us identify as a lesbian,” Éponine pointed out.

“Have you even slept with her yet?”

She glowered at him. “How’s that any of your business?”

“We’re friends. Friends talk about this stuff. Didn’t I give you graphic details about that girl I went back with last week?”

“I never wanted that information!”

Montparnasse pouted. “Whatever. Keep it to yourself then. And you won’t hear about anyone I get with tonight.”

“Good,” said Éponine, as her phone buzzed with a text.

It was from Cosette: “Did you get home safe?? Xxx”

“That’s her now, I suppose,” said Montparnasse, giving an exaggerated grimace. “I can tell by your face – wow, you are so gay for her. Bi for her. I think you actually simpered there for a second.”

Éponine had not been aware that she was simpering – clearly her acting skills were so far advanced that they came to her automatically.

She sent back a quick reply: “yeah back now. have a good night x”

“Sweet dreams!! Xxx” was the response, accompanied by several sleepy emojis.

“Gross,” said Montparnasse, retreating to his door. Then he hesitated without opening it. “Don’t suppose you want to come out with us? Or are you too boring now you have a girlfriend?”

“I’m not boring.”

“I don’t think you’ve been out with us once since you started dating her,” Montparnasse said.

Éponine opened her mouth to object, and then realised that it was quite possibly true. Not that it was Cosette who was to blame – although Éponine did spent a lot of time with her – but more because Éponine still hadn’t forgiven certain of her flatmates for their behaviour.

“Who’s ‘us’?” she asked cautiously.

“Me, Panchaud, Bou, and ‘Roy. We’re going to Shout.” This was one of the local clubs – dark, sticky, and alcohol-hazy in Éponine’s memory.

“Mmm… tempting,” she said.

“Look, Ép,” said Montparnasse, “we miss you, yeah? We all miss you. And I know ‘Roy can be kind of an asshole, but avoiding her won’t solve that. She does want to be your friend, you know?”

Éponine snorted. “She could put in the effort.”

“How’s she meant to, if you don’t give her the chance?”

He had a point – maybe not the strongest point, but a point nonetheless. Besides, now that he’d mentioned it, Éponine suddenly missed going out. And she was nowhere near tired. What was she, some Picpus girl?

 

*

 

Éponine was regretting the decision within half an hour of arriving at Shout. Somehow Boulatruelle and Fauntleroy had managed to break up in the course of the taxi ride over, and now Éponine was stuck babysitting a sobbing Fauntleroy in the toilets.

“I just don’t, like, get it,” said Fauntleroy, wiping her eyes and smearing mascara in the process. “God, he’s such a fucking dickhead. What did I fucking do? Am I not pretty enough? I’m so pretty. You think I’m pretty, right?”

Éponine couldn’t tell if the question was a trap. “He never deserved you,” she hedged.

“I’m literally so pissed off right now. You’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with men.”

There was so much wrong with that statement that Éponine didn’t know where to start. In the end she settled on: “Uh, I do actually date men as well.”

“Yeah, but you’re a lesbian now,” said Fauntleroy, swaying slightly as she did so.

“That’s really not how it–”

“Oh my God, Éponine, can you not, just for once? Not everything’s an opportunity for you get on some gay rant. Why does everything have to be about that with you?”

Éponine threw her hands up in exasperation. “Ok, well I’m going now,” she said, “to go and actually enjoy my night.”

“What? No! Wait for me, I’m coming too.”

Éponine couldn’t tell whether Fauntleroy was just that drunk from pre-drinks, or if she had purposefully missed the point.

“Actually, you’re so right,” said Fauntleroy, as they left the toilets, “that’s the best revenge.”

“What?”

“To enjoy my night. Come on, I’m gonna find a fit guy and snog him right in Bou’s ungrateful fucking face. You’re wing-woman.”

Éponine didn’t think that she’d ever felt less enthusiastic about a plan, but Fauntleroy had a sharp grip on her wrist, and she didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter.

Fauntleroy tugged her into the midst of the dance-floor, shouting something that Éponine didn’t catch.

“What?” she shouted back.

“Dance with me!” She reached out and caught both of Éponine’s hands, swaying them in time to the music.

Éponine sighed and allowed herself to be spun around a few times. 

A pair of men had moved to dance closer; Éponine could feel their eyes on her. Fauntleroy giggled at one, pulling Éponine closer and swaying against her. Then she moved one hand up to stroke Éponine’s neck.

Realising what was going on, Éponine shoved her away.

“Hey!” shouted Fauntleroy, staggering undignifiedly.

“Fuck you!” replied Éponine. “So it’s a problem if I’m touching my girlfriend, but if it’s for the attention of some guys then it’s fine?” She knew that there was no way Fauntleroy could hear everything she was saying over the music, but she didn’t care. It just felt good to yell. “I have fucking had it with you!”

She left Fauntleroy to wobble in confusion, pushing her way through to a spare booth. She sat and tried to control her breathing. 

She wished Cosette was there; Cosette would have known just what to say to calm her down. Éponine took out her phone and considered ringing her.

There was the noise of someone clearing their throat. Éponine looked up to see one of the guys from earlier.

“Mind if I sit?” he asked. He was quite pretty, but Éponine didn’t feel like getting into that now; all she could really think about was how much she needed to tell Cosette the whole story.

“I have a girlfriend,” she told him.

Thankfully, he drifted off – it was possibly the first time in history that that excuse had actually worked.

On second thoughts, she shouldn’t call Cosette until morning. She was probably asleep, dreaming of whatever delightful things happened in Cosette-dream-world. Maybe dream-Éponine was there, too, having a jolly old time. Or was it conceited to hope she featured in Cosette’s dreams? Just because Cosette was a frequent visitor in hers, that didn’t mean the inverse was true. Cosette’s unconscious was probably too perfect to feature somebody like Éponine.

Éponine put away her phone with a sigh. On the dance-floor, she spotted Fauntleroy and Boulatruelle locked in a passionate embrace.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there are some fun halls hijinks

“Someone needs to take out the bins,” Babet announced to the kitchen.

Its occupants – Éponine, Montparnasse, and Panchaud – gave a collective groan.

“I’ve done it the past four times,” Babet continued, “I’ll start charging you bastards if I have to do it again.”

“Well I’m not doing it,” said Montparnasse.

“It’s your turn,” said Babet.

“I’ve just painted my nails. Éponine’ll do it; she’ll take _anything_ out.”

Éponine frowned. “I can’t tell if that was a joke about me being bi or a joke about me being violent,” she said. “Either way, I’m offended.”

“Maybe it was a joke about your love for takeaway food?” suggested Montparnasse, batting his eyelashes in feigned innocence.

“Anyway, it’s not my turn,” said Éponine. “We should make Claquesous do it, he never does it.”

“Yeah,” said Panchaud. Now that Éponine thought of it, she had never seen _him_ lift a finger to clean either.

“Is that fair, though?” asked Babet. “Does Claquesous even _use_ the bin? Or the kitchen? When was the last time any of us saw him in here?”

Everyone thought about it.

“He _must_ use the kitchen,” said Éponine, after a few minutes’ silence.

“His shelf’s empty,” said Babet, waving a hand in the direction of the fridge.

“Bullshit,” said Montparnasse.

“Go look.”

A brief search of the fridge revealed that Babet was incorrect: Claquesous’ shelf contained a half-empty jar of salsa, two weeks’ past its best before date. So it wasn’t empty.

“What the fuck…” said Éponine. “Is he… I mean, he’s not, like, dead in his room is he?”

“I’m sure I saw him a few nights back,” said Montparnasse. “I passed him in the corridor. It was dark, but I think it was definitely him, because who else wears sunglasses at night?”

“Some students do go nocturnal,” said Babet. “I read it on BuzzFeed.”

“Yeah,” said Panchaud, “I heard that too.”

Éponine and altruism didn’t tend to go hand-in-hand, but she wasn’t keen on the idea of one of her flatmates lying dead in his room, unnoticed and uncared about by his peers. She sighed, “I guess we should knock on his door or something… Just to check.”

“Well… I’m not doing it,” said Montparnasse.

“I’ll do it if you take the bins out,” said Éponine.

Montparnasse grimaced, “Nah, you’re good, thanks. I’ll do the Claquesous thing.”

Montparnasse, Éponine, and Panchaud bundled out of the kitchen and into the corridor, followed by Babet, who was trying to pretend he had no interest in the matter.

Outside Claquesous’ door, Montparnasse hesitated, glancing at the others. “What if… Ok, Éponine’s probably getting her knickers in a knot over nothing, but what if he _is_ dead? What’s the social convention in that situation?”

“Just knock the fucking door,” said Babet.

Montparnasse shrugged and rapped a fist against the wood. There was no immediate reply. He knocked again, harder. “Claquesous, er, mate, it’s Montparnasse!” he called out. “You alright in there?”

Again, there was no response.

“Oi!” shouted Éponine, “Open up, Claquesous!”

“It’s your turn to take the bins,” added Babet.

“He’s not answering,” said Panchaud.

Montparnasse hammered his fist against the door.

A few paces down the corridor, a door opened to reveal Boulatruelle and Fauntleroy, both looking very hung-over.

“What’s your problem?” asked Fauntleroy. She had sleep in the corners of her eyes.

“Claquesous’ dead,” said Panchaud.

Babet snorted. “Don’t be a twat.”

“He’s seriously not answering though,” said Éponine. “Do you think we should, like, break down the door?”

“The RA probably has a key,” Babet pointed out.

“Wait do you guys seriously think he’s dead in there?” asked Fauntleroy.

“When did you last see him?” asked Éponine.

“Shit,” said Boulatruelle – although it may have been some other word entirely; his voice was hoarse from the previous night’s excursion.

“I bet I can pick it,” said Montparnasse.

“Wait a second…” said Babet. “Is it even locked?”

Montparnasse looked from Babet to the door handle. He tried it; it turned with no resistance.

The door opened to reveal a very normal-looking room: messy, but no messier than any other student room; smelling a trifle too strongly of men’s body spray, perhaps; and with the curtains drawn despite the time of day; but otherwise no cause for alarm. No dead body.

“Do we look–?” Éponine started to ask, but she was interrupted by Montparnasse pushing past her.

They bundled inside, searching for signs of recent occupancy.

“No mini-fridge or anything,” said Montparnasse. “What does he eat?”

“Maybe he’s a vampire,” giggled Fauntleroy.

“So where’s the coffin?” said Éponine. “Maybe he’s gone home for a visit.”

“Wouldn’t he have mentioned it?” asked Fauntleroy. She was avoiding eye contact with Éponine; hopefully it was a sign of remorse for her behaviour the previous night. Then again, it could just have been her normal level of no homo: eye contact was probably too gay for her.

Éponine surveyed the bookshelves, which were enigmatically bare. “What does he study again?” she asked.

“Philosophy,” said Babet, at the same time that Boulatruelle said “Maths.”

“Oh my God, look at this!” cried Fauntleroy.

Éponine turned to see that he had opened one of the drawers in Claquesous’ desk. It contained six different pairs of sunglasses.

“Holy shit this is the best thing I’ve seen all day,” Montparnasse said, clapping his hands in excitement. He pulled out a pair and tried them on. “How do I look?”

“It’s like having him in the room with us,” said Éponine. “Here, give me one.”

Montparnasse handed another pair to her.

“Sweet,” said Éponine, “Dolce and Gabbana. Are they real?”

“Of course not,” said Montparnasse, grimacing as if he was personally insulted by the idea.

“How can you tell?” asked Fauntleroy.

“I just can.”

“What’s going on?” The voice from doorway made them all jump.

Éponine looked up to see Claquesous, wearing a seventh pair of sunglasses and carrying several supermarket bags of food. She rushed to remove the fake Dolce and Gabbanas from her face. “We… thought we smelled gas?” she improvised.

 

*

 

“I think this proves we need more excitement as a flat,” said Montparnasse, as he helped Éponine carry an over-stuffed bin bag down to the refuse collection point. “There’s not enough drama, we’re starting to loose touch with reality.”

“Are you saying you wish Claquesous _had_ been dead?”

“No,” said Montparnasse, “I’m very glad to know he’s just weird. But I’m saying… where’s the gossip? Where’s the scandal? Can’t you get into a fight with someone?”

“Can’t you?”

“What about Cosette? She’s still novel, you should invite her over to entertain us.”

“I’m sorry, whose girlfriend is she?” Éponine asked. The answer, of course, was ‘neither of theirs’, but Éponine was never above hypocrisy.

“She never comes over,” whined Montparnasse.

“That’s a complete lie.”

“She never _stays_ over. Don’t think I’ve forgotten yesterday’s conversation,” said Montparnasse.

Éponine had forgotten it herself, until just now. “What, the unwelcome prying into the details of my sex life? That conversation?”

“That’s the one.”

“Stop being nosy and help me open the door.”

Opening the refuse room door was no mean feat when grappling with a bin bag full of rubbish, which seemed to want nothing more than to escape all over the floor. It took some creative balancing from the pair of them, but eventually Éponine managed to turn the handle with one knee, and they were able to half-tumble into the stack of rubbish on the other side.

Finally, their bag was perched safely atop the pile, and both of them were splattered with only a minimal amount of the mysterious and unpleasant liquid that bin bags always seem to emit.

“Ok,” said Montparnasse, “I’m going to need to take about ten showers now.”

 

*

 

As Éponine scrubbed her hands in the bathroom sink, she tried to figure out whether she should heed Montparnasse’s words. On the one hand, he _did_ have a point: couples at university tended to sleep with each other. But on the other, she had a suspicion that this was just another example of a man thinking he had a right to the details of the private lives of women-loving women.

Either way, though, if she wanted to keep up the relationship charade for a respectable amount of time, it was something that probably needed addressing.

Satisfied that her hands were purged of bin juice, Éponine returned to her room and phoned Cosette.

The line rang for a while before Cosette picked up. “–Back in a sec. Hi, Ép, what’s up?” There was the rumble of another voice in the background, and a laugh from Cosette in response.

“Sorry, are you busy? I can call back.”

“Not at all, I’m just with some of the Picpus girls.”

“Oh,” said Éponine, feeling an unpleasant waft of jealousy. She hurriedly quashed the emotion; she had thought she’d left behind her habit of getting jealous when her friends had other friends in secondary school. Then again, it had been a while since she’d been as close to someone as she was to Cosette.

“So… what’s up?” Cosette asked again.

Éponine reminded herself that, sure, Cosette was having fun with other people, but she had still answered Éponine’s call. That made her feel better.

“Um,” said Éponine, realising that she should have planned in advance how to broach the subject. Suddenly the idea of talking to Cosette about anything sexual made her feel oddly embarrassed – oddly because she normally wasn’t squeamish about sex in the least. What was wrong with her today? Maybe the bin fumes were responsible, she was pretty sure they had been noxious.

“You still there, Ép?”

“Yep, sorry, I’m just finding my words. Do you want to come over for a sleepover sometime to help me convince my flatmates that lesbian bed death is a myth?”

There was the tinkle of laughter over the phone.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, I just love your way with the English language.”

Éponine grinned. “Well, I’m paying Cameron nine grand a year to study it, so I’d hope I was getting a grasp by now. What are we, about a thousand pounds in?”

“Oh God, don’t remind me.”

“Sorry. So, sleepover?”

“Sounds utterly marvellous to me!”

“‘Utterly marvellous’? Now who has a way with the English language? Yes, it will be a spiffing sleepover.”

“Delightful, darling.”

Éponine snorted and shuffled through the mess of post-it notes on her desk that served as a calendar. “Great. When are you free?”

“Tomorrow?”

“So soon? You’re sure you’ve not seen enough of me for one week?”

“I can never see enough of you.”

“Gay.”

“My flat-mates seem to agree. Yes, Haania, I can see you rolling your eyes over there.”

Éponine had forgotten that Cosette was in company. She wondered how much of Cosette’s manner was for their benefit, and then scolded herself for doubting the actions of someone so perfect and good. “I’d better let you get back,” she said.

“As if I wouldn’t much rather talk to you. Sorry, Haania, it’s just the truth.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Éponine, “I wouldn’t want to deprive Haania of your company.” She tried to remember if she’d met Haania before. She didn’t think so, but it was possible – all Cosette’s flatmates were so quiet and retiring that she normally only saw glimpses of them when she visited Picpus.”

“Sure,” said Cosette. “What are you doing today? Studying?”

“Yeah,” said Éponine, her eyes sliding over to the week’s untouched reading assignments. “I should probably get started on the Virginia Woolf.”

“Oh, _Orlando_? You’ll like it, it’s very queer.”

“You’ve said that about every book on the syllabus so far.”

“Your point?”

“Ok, ok. Well, I’ll give it a go and tell you tomorrow whether I agree with you or not. Seven-ish?”

“I’ll be there! Kisses!”

That would show Montparnasse all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes éponine, it's the bin fumes, totally the bin fumes...
> 
> claquesous' characterisation may or may not be based upon one of my flat-mates in first-year. why was your fridge shelf always empty, ollie? were you even called ollie?
> 
> tune in next time (when it eventually happens) for a sleepover!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there is a sleepover

Éponine was in the middle of an intensive room-cleaning session when she noticed that Montparnasse had at some point materialised in the doorway. He had an uncanny knack for these sudden appearances: you’d be minding your own business one minute, and the next you’d realise that he was there, and that you had no idea when he had gotten there, and you’d begin to wonder whether he hadn’t actually been there all along.

“Don’t make me jump like that, asshole,” Éponine snapped.

Montparnasse eyed the stack of Mills and Boon paperbacks Éponine had been trying to hide under her bed. “What’s all this?” he asked.

“I’m tidying, obviously.”

“Since when do you tidy?”

This was pretty rich coming from someone whose entire room acted as an extension of his wardrobe. “Since Cosette’s staying over tonight,” she told him.

Montparnasse let out a gasp and staggered backwards a few steps, one hand to his chest. Such a Theatre student. “You mean,” he asked, voice wavering, “Éponine’s finally getting laid? This is–”

Whatever ‘this’ was, Éponine would never know, as Montparnasse was tragically interrupted mid-sentence by a book flying at him. He managed to weave out of its way just in time.

“Really, Ép, you should take better care of your belongings,” he said, plucking it up from where it had landed on the floor.

Éponine launched herself across the room but wasn’t quick enough to stop him from reading the title.

“‘ _The Viking and the Virgin_ ’?” he cooed, “Sounds super literary, Ép.” He twisted away from her flailing arms and began to read the blurb. “‘No man could defeat him, but one woman could ruin him. When the mighty Viking warlord Knut’ – Are you kidding me? _Knut_? – ‘falls for the untouched maiden Hilde, he realises that she will be his hardest conquest yet. Headstrong, dangerous, and skilled with a sword, Hilde is more than a match. Can the man who razed a thousand armies learn that sometimes the only way to win is by surrendering yourself?’”

“You’re such a dick!” said Éponine. She was pretty adept at disguising embarrassment as anger.

“Is this what does it for you, Ép? Burly Vikings? You gonna make Cosette dress up in of those horny helmet things?”

“I’m gonna make _you_ shut the fuck up!”

Montparnasse laughed, handing the book back to her. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! No more mocking, I promise. I’ll behave.”

“You’d better,” said Éponine. She managed to cram the last of her books under the bed – a difficult task, seeing as about eighty percent of her possessions were already occupying the space. Whoever designed student bedrooms was severely misinformed about the amount of storage that a student required.

Montparnasse silently began folding the pile of laundry that had been chilling on a chair for the past week, leaving her free to tackle the bed sheets.

“So…” said Montparnasse after a while, transferring a pair of dungarees onto a coat hanger, “can I borrow that book when you’re done with it?”

 

 

*

 

 

By the time Cosette arrived, Éponine’s room was basically presentable – just so long as you didn’t look under the bed.

“Hey babe,” said Cosette, leaning in to peck Éponine on the cheek.

Éponine caught a hint of the perfume she always wore, a smell that she had come to think of as synonymous with Cosette. She grinned, holding the building door open to grant Cosette entrance. “You know that nobody’s watching us right now?” she pointed out.

“I’m just getting into character,” said Cosette, giving a theatrical little twirl that made her skirt balloon.

“You look gorgeous, honeybun,” said Éponine.

“Good,” said Cosette, “I made an effort.”

As if Cosette didn’t always make an effort, Éponine thought. Did Cosette own any item of clothing chosen solely for comfort? Still, she did look particularly cute in the circle skirt and crop top combo that she was currently sporting – Éponine very much appreciated the couple inches of exposed skin around Cosette’s midriff, on a purely aesthetic level, of course.

“May I carry your luggage, sugarplum?” asked Éponine, taking Cosette’s overnight bag from her. “I thought we could order pizza,” she added, leading the way up the stairs, “rather than risk the hazards of cooking in my kitchen. Don’t want to give you food poisoning.”

“Chivalrous _and_ health and safety conscious,” said Cosette, “God, Éponine, could you be better girlfriend material if you tried?”

“I really am a catch,” agreed Éponine.

They deposited Cosette’s overnight bag in Éponine’s room – “How tidy! Are you trying to impress me, darling?” – and then settled into a friendly argument about pizza toppings. As it turned out, Cosette wasn’t as perfect as she had led Éponine to believe: she was pro pineapple on pizza.

 

 

*

 

 

One pineapple pizza later – oh, the things Éponine did for fake love – they were propped up on Éponine’s bed watching Disney’s _Cinderella_.

“This was always my favourite one,” said Cosette, leaning against Éponine’s shoulder and then frowning when Éponine’s hair tickled her nose. “Can I braid this? Proper sleepover style?”

“Sure,” said Éponine, shifting to give Cosette a better angle. “I always liked _Mulan_.”

Cosette ran her hands through Éponine’s hair – which Éponine now realised was embarrassingly tangled. “That makes sense,” she said.

“How?”

“Oh, I can just totally see you dressing as a man and running off to fight.”

“Am I _that_ butch?”

Cosette laughed as she began to plait. “I meant that you’re… tenacious.”

“Good word.”

On screen, the fairy godmother put in her first appearance.

“You know, if some old woman appeared and started telling me she was magic…”

“She’s not ‘some old woman’!” protested Cosette.

“I’m just saying…”

“Éponine, you shall _not_ go to the ball!”

Cosette’s fingers moved soothingly through her hair, teasing it this way and that. Éponine shut her eyes, letting herself enjoy the sensation.

“Do you have a scrunchy?” asked Cosette, interrupting the moment.

“A what?”

“To tie the end. Your transformation is complete, Éponine-ella!”

“Ah,” said Éponine. “I’ve got one somewhere, probably, but it might take some hunting.”

“Oh well,” said Cosette, letting the plait fall against Éponine’s back, “we’ll just have to leave it. Your hair’s so thick it’ll probably hold on its own.”

“Finally good for something,” said Éponine, settling back into a better movie-watching position.

“What? Éponine, you have lovely hair.”

“Sure.”

Cosette gave a gentle tug at the already-unravelling end of Éponine’s plait. “I’m serious, I think it looks amazing.”

Éponine lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Was that a bit gay?”

“Yes, Cosette, that was a bit gay.”

“I guess that’ll be because I’m a bit gay,” said Cosette, grinning.

In the background, Éponine was vaguely aware that Cinderella had started dancing with her prince, but she was having a hard time looking away from Cosette. Cosette had such a pleasant smile, all warm and sunny, so that it made Éponine feel all warm and sunny whenever she saw it. Again she could smell Cosette’s floral perfume, cradling them both in their shared space. A weird, sudden urge struck Éponine to lean forwards and…

“Oh!” said Cosette, pushing herself off the bed, “that reminds me: I’ve bought dessert!”

Éponine collected herself together in time to see Cosette pulling a packet of marshmallows out of her overnight bag.

“I thought we could toast them!” she said.

“Um, how?”

Cosette paused, her brow wrinkling. “Oh, right. Do you have any candles?”

“I don’t trust myself not to knock them over. Montparnasse might…”

“How about the kitchen hobs?”

“That works,” said Éponine, pausing _Cinderella_ and setting her laptop aside.

As she led Cosette to the kitchen, Éponine took the opportunity for a brief freak-out. What had just happened between her and Cosette? Had Éponine seriously been about to _kiss_ her? Where the fuck had that come from? Sure, she thought that Cosette was attractive – anyone who saw her would think that – but she wasn’t _attracted_ to Cosette. Cosette was her friend! _Friend_!

And then the next part… had Cosette really remembered the marshmallows just then, or had she somehow sensed what Éponine was thinking and created a diversion? It seemed a little too coincidental that Cosette had managed to find an activity that would move them out of the private space of Éponine’s bedroom and into the public space of the kitchen. Had Éponine made Cosette uncomfortable? She hated the thought of that; that Cosette might now somehow feel that she had to be on guard around Éponine–

“Ép?” asked Cosette, and Éponine realised that she had been asking something.

“Come again?”

“Do you have anything pointy we can toast these on?”

“Oh, right,” said Éponine, crossing over to her drawer and rummaging around for a pair of forks. “Will these work?”

“Can’t hurt to try!” said Cosette.

While they were skewering their marshmallows, Cosette glanced around the room as if looking for something. “Where’s everyone else? Your kitchen’s normally so busy.”

Éponine tried not to search Cosette’s tone for hints that she was worried about being alone with Éponine.

“I think some of them might be _studying_ , if you can believe it,” she replied.

“That sounds made up,” said Cosette.

“Remember it’s only us Arts students who get a break for reading week. The Maths lot actually have some tests coming up.”

“Serves them right for taking Maths,” said Cosette.

“True.”

Éponine twisted the hob dial – it was faulty and required an expert hand to find the exact angle that would make it spark – then moved aside to make room for Cosette. They both held their marshmallows over the hoop of blue flame, watching the sugar begin to blister.

“Yours is melting faster than mine!” protested Cosette.

“It’s not a race.”

Cosette stuck out her tongue and moved the marshmallow closer to the flame. It began to form a black-brown crust.

“Careful not to get it too close,” said Éponine, “or–”

With perfect timing, Cosette’s marshmallow gave a gentle _whoosh_ and caught aflame.

Cosette made a whining noise and waved her fork around in an attempt to extinguish it, but the motion served only to dislodge it from its prongs. With a plop, the fiery gloop slid off her fork and onto the hob.

Éponine had been so busy laughing at Cosette’s dilemma that she hadn’t noticed how close her own fork had gotten to the flame. Éponine gave a yelp as the metal overheated and dropped it. It clanked against the hob, and Éponine’s dessert joined Cosette’s in the mess of molten sugar. The marshmallow bits closest to the flame had shrivelled to a poisonous-looking grey mound that bubbled ominously and kept spitting out smoke.

“Turn it off!” Cosette laughed, twisting at the dial. True to shitty form, it didn’t respond, and the hob kept on blazing merrily away.

The smoke – and there was far more of it than two small marshmallows should reasonably have produced – caught at Éponine’s throat and sent her into a fit of coughing.

“The wall,” she managed to gasp, gesturing in the vague direction of a bank of plug sockets, “there’s a gas switch on the wall.”

Cosette hurried to locate it. The hob died, leaving a spluttering pile of ex-marshmallow.

Then the fire alarm started to scream.

 

 

*

 

 

“Thanks for ruining my bath, guys,” said Fauntleroy, half-dressed, damp, and shivering against the night air.

“Like you didn’t set the alarm off like five times in Freshers’ with your hair-straighteners,” said Brujon. He accepted a cigarette from Panchaud and took a drag. It seemed counter-productive to Éponine, to be smoking at the fire evacuation meeting point. What was the procedure if the meeting point caught fire?

Fauntleroy scowled. “At least one of those times it was ‘Parnasse’s straighteners.”

Montparnasse shrugged carelessly. “Yeah, but _I’m_ not the one complaining now. I’m sure Éponine’s just as disappointed to have her date night interrupted.” He gave Éponine one of the least subtle winks she had ever seen.

“How does it take them so fucking long to take a roll-call?” muttered Gueulemer.

“Your braid looks nice, by the way, Ép,” said Montparnasse. “Dare I say, very… Viking.”

Éponine pretended to be suddenly very concerned with the fork-burn on her hand.

 

 

*

 

 

At long last, the students were allowed back into the building, and Éponine and Cosette returned to Éponine’s room without braving the rest of the marshmallows.

When they resumed _Cinderella_ , Cosette leant against Éponine quite normally. She seemed fine, too, with putting on her pyjamas and top-to-tailing in Éponine’s bed. Éponine began to suspect that she had entirely fabricated the earlier awkwardness.

 “Can you leave the lamp on?” asked Cosette, as they settled down for the night. “I can’t sleep in the dark.”

“Sure,” said Éponine, even though she preferred things to be pitch-black herself.

“Thanks,” mumbled Cosette, turning her face into her borrowed pillow, and snuggling further into the bed. Éponine could feel the brush of curled-up knees against her thigh, her skin fizzing at the contact.

“Night, Ép,” said Cosette.

“Night,” said Éponine, although she knew that she wouldn’t fall asleep for a long time, not with the light on, and not with a series of puzzling circumstances to turn over in her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much everyone who's been leaving kudos and comments – you are all treasures and you have really motivated me to keep going with this, even though it's happening very slowly!! but slowly is better than not at all, right?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an escalation in the flatmate situation leads to unsettling discoveries about university policy on discrimination

Éponine woke to the sense that something solid and heavy had just joined her on the bed. When she opened her eyes, she saw that it was Cosette, perched on the edge of the mattress and smiling apologetically.

“Did I wake you?” she asked. Her hair was tousled like an adorable haystack.

Éponine pushed herself into a sitting position, stifling a yawn. “Maybe. It’s fine, though.” She hoped she hadn’t been doing anything embarrassing like snoring or drooling. A surreptitious hand to her pillow found it reassuringly dry. There were some small mercies in life. “You been up long?”

“Only about ten minutes,” said Cosette.

“Do you want breakfast?”

“Please!” said Cosette, and then frowned. “Well, so long as the kitchen doesn’t still smell like cremated marshmallows.”

The events of the previous evening came back to Éponine all at once. The recollection of her confused feelings towards Cosette seemed so ridiculous by the cold light of day that she had to stop herself from laughing: what had her hormones been doing to convince her she’d developed some kind of crush on Cosette? Sitting on the bed with Cosette now, it seemed obvious to Éponine that her feelings were purely friendly. And that she needed to start getting some non-fake action in her love life – inventing crushes on friends to make up for a lack of romantic fulfilment really was a step too far.

“Let’s go investigate the scene,” said Éponine, extracting herself from the duvet.

Cosette giggled and opened the bedroom door, swivelling to hold it open for Éponine behind her. Then she paused, her gaze caught on something attached to the other side of the door. “What’s this?” she asked.

“What’s what?” asked Éponine.

Cosette pulled a shred of paper from where it had been blu-tacked to the wood. The corners of her lips turned down in a grimace and she handed it to Éponine.

It was a hand-written note: ‘Fuck pussy-munchers’. Probably, Éponine suspected, a present from Fauntleroy to make up for the ruined-bath incident. “How thoughtful,” she said, crumpling it up.

“Don’t do that!” cried Cosette.

Éponine froze mid-crumple, trying to make sense of Cosette’s sudden attachment to the note. “What?” she asked.

“What’re you doing?”

“Um, throwing it away?” said Éponine. “Sorry, did you want to add it to your scrapbook or…?”

“No, I mean, you need to keep it as evidence.”

“Evidence?”

“That’s hate-speech, Éponine,” said Cosette. She looked like she was actually serious.

“It’s just one of my flatmates trying to be funny,” said Éponine. “What am I gonna do, report them?”

“ _Yes_!” said Cosette, voice starting to get squeaky, “Of course you should report them, Éponine! I’m so fed up with the way those guys treat you. It’s not right! We should have done something about it ages ago; _I_ should have done something that first time I met them – something more useful than pretending to be your girlfriend, I mean.”

Éponine made a shushing motion, very aware that they were in the corridor – the last thing she needed was anyone overhearing that the whole girlfriend thing was fake.

Cosette clearly caught her meaning, as she glanced towards the nearest door and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I mean it, Ép,” she said, “this is harassment. You need to tell your RA so they can step in and–”

“And what?” asked Éponine. “Make things worse? I can handle this perfectly fine on my own.”

“But you don’t have to,” said Cosette, reaching over to take Éponine’s hand, still clenched around the crumpled note. “Bullies work by isolating you. Telling someone else is the best weapon you have against them. Trust me, I know.”

Éponine felt a twinge as she caught the image of a younger Cosette, cowering away from playground taunts. If anyone deserved to be bullied, it was Éponine; call it a cosmic comeuppance. But, she realised, the note and the comments from her flatmates weren’t directed only at her: Cosette had stepped in to help, and because of that Cosette made up half of the target. Cosette didn’t deserve to put up with homophobia when she came over to hang out with a friend.

“Okay, fine,” said Éponine, “we’ll go talk to the RA, okay?”

 

 

*

 

 

Éponine had met her RA only once, in a hall meeting at the beginning of term. He was a Postgrad student of Business or Marketing (or something like that) called Gorbeau. During the meeting, he had laid out a series of hall rules – things like ‘no smoking inside’, ‘no kitchen parties past 2AM’, ‘no illegal substances’ – which had all been broken by week two. So Éponine didn’t have much faith in his ability to enforce tolerance in her flatmates. But she couldn’t back out now, not with Cosette watching her. Éponine pressed the buzzer next to his door.

After a while Gorbeau emerged, bleary-eyed and pyjama-clad.

“Hi,” said Éponine. “I’m Éponine” – she didn’t know if he’d remember her from the hall meeting – “from the third floor?”

“Oh, right. Anything the matter?”

“Uh, yeah, I want to complain about my flatmates, I guess,” she said, feeling her vocabulary start to dry up. This always happened to her around authority figures – even puny ones like RAs. They always gave her the the sense that _she_ was the one in trouble.

“Noise, is it?”

“What? Oh, no, they’re, uh–”

Cosette nudged her with an elbow. “Why don’t you show him the note?” she asked.

Éponine nodded gratefully and held out the note to Gorbeau. “This was on my door this morning,” she said. “They’ve – some of them, I mean – have been making comments like that since I came out to them. I wouldn’t mind,” she hurried to add, anxious not to seem like a tattle-tale, “but it’s not nice for Cosette when she comes over. This is Cosette. She’s my girlfriend.”

Gorbeau examined the note and rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks. “Well,” he said at last, “that’s not very nice of them, is it?”

“No,” said Éponine.

Cosette snorted. “‘Not very nice’? It’s hate speech, is what it is.”

Gorbeau looked at Cosette, blinking slowly as if he couldn’t quite wrap his head around her words. “I suppose,” he said.

“Right,” said Cosette, “so what are you going to do about it?”

“Well, do you know who wrote this?” he asked, gesturing with the note.

“I can guess,” said Éponine.

“But you don’t _know_?”

“She just told you there are a few of them who’ve been saying things like this for weeks,” Cosette said.

“If you don’t know who it was,” Gorbeau said, “I don’t know what I can really do about it. I can’t go about accusing people of things they haven’t done, can I? Sorry,” he said, with a half-shrug.

Éponine made a noise of resignation and prepared to retreat – she had known it would be like this, but she still felt let down. She held out her hand to reclaim the note.

Cosette, however, wasn’t ready to give in. “Are you serious?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“My girlfriend has just told you she’s a victim of homophobic bullying and _that’s_ your response? ‘Sorry’?”

“Cosette, it’s fine,” said Éponine.

“Not, it’s not fine,” said Cosette. She turned back to Gorbeau, “You’re her RA; it is literally your job to make sure that halls are a safe environment for her.” Her voice was getting squeaky again, and her cheeks had flushed like blooming roses. “If you’re not going to stand up for her, who is?”

Gorbeau’s expression settled into something a little less amiable. “Look,” he said, “being rude to me isn’t going to help you any.”

“You think it’s rude to demand that you do your job?” snapped Cosette.

“Cosette, let’s just leave it,” said Éponine. She was normally all for standing up to assholes, but it certainly wasn’t worth Cosette getting into trouble over something as insignificant as Éponine’s flatmates. Even if righteously-angry Cosette was kind of hot…

“Look,” said Gorbeau, “I won’t be spoken to like this. I’m going to shut my door and if you don’t leave, I _will_ call the security team out. If you have a more definite complaint, and _if_ you can be polite, then you can come and talk to me again, but for now, as I said, there’s nothing I can do about it.” With that, he shut the door.

 

 

*

 

 

Cosette was still fuming when they met up that evening for an ABC meeting.

“Listen to this,” she said, reading from her phone as they waited at the bus stop, “nowhere in the halls Terms and Conditions does it mention any kind of policy on hate speech or discrimination or bullying. Nowhere! All these rules about noise levels and appropriate use of fridge space, but nothing about something as important as protecting the most vulnerable students!”

Éponine stooped to rest her chin on Cosette’s shoulder, breathing in the comforting smell of her perfume. “Stop stressing over it,” she said. “You don’t need to defend my honour, babe.”

“I can feel you talking when you do that,” laughed Cosette. “It’s weird. Anyway, it’s not about you–”

“Oh, charming.”

“I mean it’s not _just_ about you. Gorbeau’s an absolute joke. What if it wasn’t you, and it was someone less tough? The whole point of people in authority positions is that they’re supposed to look out for the vulnerable.”

“I don’t think an authority figure has ever looked out for me in my life,” said Éponine.

“Yes, but that’s not how it _should_ be. They _should_ –”

She broke off as she noticed Courfeyrac, Marius, and Jehan approaching at a trot.

“We haven’t missed the bus?” puffed Marius, his face the colour of beetroot. “Phew!”

“Someone,” wheezed Jehan, gesturing at Courfeyrac, “had to change his outfit three times before–”

“I wasn’t the one ironing creases into my jeans!” said Courfeyrac, cutting them off.

A quick scan of the three pairs of legs before Éponine revealed that it was Marius who was responsible for this heinous crime. The creases were immaculate, which made it worse. Luckily for him, the bus pulled up before she had a chance to start mocking.

 

 

*

 

 

All the people from the original meeting – well, all the ones who hadn’t been scared away in the first ten minutes – were back again, Éponine was pleased to find; they were a fun crowd to be around. Once the initial chatter was done with, Enjolras took charge.

“Welcome back, everyone,” ae said with a smile. From the outside, ae seemed so stern that the warmth of aer smile surprised Éponine every time. “It’s great to see you all back again for our first campaign meeting. For you new members, I’ll just explain that we normally use the first meeting of term to vote on a specific campaign area and strategy for the rest of the term. Obviously, we used the first meeting this time for introductions, so we’re a little behind schedule right now.

“How it works is that each member can put forward one idea for this term’s goal, and then we’ll take a show-of-hands votes to decide which to pursue. We’ve found it’s more effective to concentrate our efforts on one thing at a time than to split our resources over several fronts. So, have a think about whether there are any LBGT-specific issues you want to address, and in the meantime I’ll hand over to Combeferre to recap what we did last year.”

Unlike Enjolras, Combeferre didn’t bother to stand up – unlike Enjolras, he was tall enough not to need to.

“Ah, the fun job!” said Combeferre. “So, what did we achieve last year? Well, in first term we started a weekly afterschool programme in two local secondaries, offering resources, support, and an LGBT library service. Which is still on-going, by the way, so if any newbies want to get involved then come to talk to me about it.

“In second term we organised a speaker series, which was pretty successful. We had four events, and sold something close to two hundred tickets between them – all proceeds going to a local LGBT charity, of course.

“And then in third term – this is my favourite one, to be honest – we pressured the SU to make its single-stalled toilets gender neutral. They made the change over the summer – I don’t know whether you’ve seen them?”

“I love it!” called out Bahorel.

Combeferre gave a thumbs-up in response. “So with those victories to inspire you, does anyone have any of their own suggestions? Newbies, the floor is open to you, too, please don’t be shy!”

A handful of ideas were put forwards – Courfeyrac wanted to put on a fashion show fundraiser; Joly had an idea about petitioning the local health centres to give out free condoms; Grantaire wanted to go to the pub once the meeting was over, which Enjolras said wasn’t a valid campaign strategy, but was added to the meeting minutes nevertheless.

“Ép, what about your thing?” said Cosette.

“What thing?” asked Éponine.

Combeferre caught their conversation from across the room. “Did you have a suggestion?” he asked, eyes darting between Éponine and Cosette.

“Yes, actually,” said Cosette. “Something that happened this morning made me realise the halls Terms and Conditions don’t offer any kind of protection against discrimination…” She proceeded to give a condensed explanation of the morning to the group, leaving out certain things like Éponine’s fake relationship, and – at least in Éponine’s opinion – exaggerating Éponine’s situation to make her look far more hard-done-by. She caught some pitying looks from a few ABC members and had to grit her teeth.

When it came to the vote, Cosette’s proposal won by a wide majority.

“Congratulations, everyone,” announced Enjolras, “we have our first campaign issue of the year! Now, we’re going to need a pair of volunteers to be in charge of coordinating it.” Ae turned to Cosette and Éponine. “I don’t suppose you two want to have a go?”

Cosette glanced at Éponine. _Do you want to?_

Éponine chewed at her lip, considering it. Of course she _wanted_ to help, and it was always good to have an excuse to spend more time with her new bestie, but was she up to the challenge of coordinating a term-long campaign?

“Of course, all the rest of us will be here to support you and guide you the whole way,” Combeferre added.

Éponine met Cosette’s eyes. Here was a girl who had been bullied throughout childhood, willing to stand up for _her_ , Éponine, one of the kids who had treated her so badly; willing to spend her free time working with Éponine to help _protect_ her. Éponine owed it to her to agree. She nodded, feeling a spreading warmth in her chest that told her that – oh no – she _did_ have a crush after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your patience and support!! xxx

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!


End file.
